Green Initiatives and Arup Associates launch new monthly forum series

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Green Initiatives

Friday 30 October 2015

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After the recently concluded ‘Game Changers’ event series that focused on topics such as carbon trading, smart grid, resilient cities, biomimicry and the sharing economy, Green Initiatives and Arup Associates Launch a brand new monthly forum series titled ‘Building for the Future’ that would run at the Arup Associates Office from September 2015 to January 2016.

The City has throughout modernity been a setting that stands in opposition to nature. Cities exhibit a control over natural order, where landscapes yield to industrial development and horizons hide behind skylines, where our behaviours are dictated by roads, neighbourhoods, borders and the very spaces we inhabit. But with estimates predicting 70% of the world’s population living in cities by the year 2050, the Metropolis is no longer an alternative to a natural existence—it is itself the natural environment of future generations and ecosystems.

The Building for the Future series will comprise of a variety of forums based around this transformation of cities from encasements of their populations to extensions of them, as well as the buildings that represent these cities. The series would investigate topics such as: big data and internet of things to drive smart cities development, advancements in digital technologies to make building designs efficient, the shift from green buildings to healthy buildings, understanding Shanghai’s climate resiliency and ‘smartness’, and innovations in retrofitting that can efficiently upgrade existing infrastructure.

Experts from diverse backgrounds will share insight into how these issues are already affecting construction and urban planning as well as what possibilities they may unlock in the future.

According to Antonio Ng, Founder and Principal Architect at Arup Associates Shanghai, “Arup Associates is keen to steer this series of events towards a less academic focus, yet more interesting for non-technical audience. We would like it to be less about information dissemination and more about inspiration. And finally, we would like to extend the scope of these discussions to beyond just architects, designers and cities. We believe that everyone will have something to take away from these events, and would like everyone to be a part of the conversation.”

The first event, “How will big data enable the future of smart cities?” was organized on September 24, 2015 and was proudly attended by over 80 professionals from various industries. Speakers included Kin Puan Wong, Senior Consultant at Arup Shanghai, Fabien Pfaender, Data Scientist and Associate Professor at ComplexCity Lab, and Kalo Wang, CEO at Dynamic Data.

Arup Associates, Arup’s leading multidisciplinary design studio established in 1963, is made up of architects and engineers collaborating with in-house designers, artists, scientists, physicists and environmentalists spanning multiple locations across the world. Our integrated team works side-by-side from the start of every project, pushing each other to think beyond the boundaries of our roles, exploring the unexpected and sparking ideas we could never have alone.

Green Initiatives (GI) has been hosting environmental awareness focused events in Shanghai since 2009. In collaboration with Arup Shanghai over the last 3 years a wide variety of topics have already been discussed at these forums, including: conscious consumerism, the future of eco cities, inspiring green technologies and other game changing environmental concepts.